FAMILY SAILING
Celebrity Silhouette gave us the relaxed style of cruising that we've come to appreciate about Celebrity. Great food, excellent service, and a quieter atmosphere made it a ship where we could simply slow down and enjoy being together. Celebrity isn't necessarily where we go looking for nonstop activities, but Silhouette showed us that sometimes a great cruise is simply about good food, new places, and having nowhere you need to be.
Our Bermuda cruise was different from most of our Caribbean cruises.
Instead of bouncing between several islands, we sailed from New York and spent three days in Bermuda. That gave us something we don't normally get on a cruise: enough time to explore without feeling like we had to cram an entire destination into six or seven hours.
Bermuda turned out to be beautiful. The water was gorgeous, the towns were clean, and having three days gave us the freedom to visit caves, use public transportation, find a beach on our own and still book an excursion.
The cruise itself, though?
That was a more complicated story.
Our trip started June 13 with a 3 a.m. wake-up for a 7:11 a.m. flight from Indianapolis to New York.
We happened to arrive during the 2026 World Cup, and Brazil was playing Morocco that night. Since Hellen grew up in Brazil, we thought it would be fun to find a watch party near our hotel.
The first thing we noticed about New York was the cost.
Everything involving transportation seemed expensive.
Our Uber from the airport to the hotel was around $150. Getting around the city added more, and our trip to a Brazilian churrascaria was roughly another $50 each way before tip.
It didn't take long to realize that our pre-cruise night in New York wasn't going to be cheap.
Our hotel was conveniently close to the cruise terminal, which was exactly what we'd wanted.
But breakfast was $19.
That's the kind of little expense that starts standing out when you've traveled enough to know many hotels include breakfast for free.
Our boarding time the following day was around 1 p.m., and we arrived at the port at roughly 12:30.
In hindsight, there wasn't much reason to hang around the hotel.
We should have simply checked out and gone directly to the terminal.
And then something strange happened.
Embarkation was almost...too easy.
We pulled up expecting the usual crowds and lines.
Instead, the terminal felt almost empty.
We didn't even have to throw away the liquids we were carrying.
For a major cruise terminal in New York, it felt oddly calm—one of the easiest boarding experiences we'd had.
Our dinner reservation that evening wasn't until 8:15 p.m. We changed the time, but still ended up eating later than we'd have preferred.
Our first impression of the ship was fairly simple:
It was okay.
And it felt very familiar.
We'd previously sailed on Celebrity Reflection, and this ship felt essentially the same.
The next few sea days would remind us of both what we really like about Celebrity—and what we don't.
The food.
Our first sea-day breakfast in the main dining room was good, but the buffet was where Celebrity really stood out.
We'd almost forgotten how much we liked it.
The selection and quality were excellent.
We tend to prefer Norwegian Cruise Line's approach of having lots of restaurant-style dining choices around the ship, but Celebrity's buffet made a very strong case for itself.
And the food stayed consistently good throughout the cruise.
Service was organized.
The ship was relaxing.
We also noticed something we definitely appreciated:
There weren't smokers around our balcony.
After other cruising experiences, being able to actually enjoy the balcony without cigarette or marijuana smoke drifting over was a major plus.
This is where the cruise struggled.
There just wasn't much entertainment that appealed to us.
The passenger demographic skewed older, and much of the music and programming seemed designed around that audience.
For us, the entertainment was one of the weakest parts of the cruise.
The funny thing is that Ollie didn't seem to care.
He'd discovered something much more important.
Ollie was getting old enough that we allowed him to check himself in and out of the kids club.
That became a huge part of this trip.
We checked him in around 9:40 one morning, and he checked himself out around 11:40. Because he had his room card on a lanyard, he could simply return to our cabin.
He loved it.
The kids club also ran a scavenger hunt around the ship, which was right up his alley.
Watching him gain a little independence changed the cruise for us, too. We didn't necessarily have to coordinate every minute of the day around the same activity.
And we were starting to notice another change.
Snorkeling wasn't nearly as exciting to Ollie anymore.
He wanted to explore.
And, apparently, hunt for crabs.
That would become very obvious once we reached Bermuda.
Sailing into Bermuda immediately made an impression.
The port was incredibly clean and well kept.
And the water was beautiful.
For our first day, we decided to visit the Crystal and Fantasy Caves.
Rather than book everything through the cruise line, we used Bermuda's transportation system.
We took a minibus toward the caves, which took roughly an hour, and later used a combination of buses and ferries.
The caves were impressive.
We visited both Crystal Cave and Fantasy Cave, which are right next to one another.
Ollie enjoyed the minerals in the gift shop almost as much as the caves themselves.
Afterward, we headed to St. George's using public transportation and eventually took the public ferry back toward the cruise port.
That was one of our favorite things about Bermuda.
Because the ship was staying for three days, we could actually move around the island without constantly checking the clock.
There was another thing we learned quickly:
Bermuda can be expensive.
The Bermudian dollar trades one-for-one with the U.S. dollar, which makes paying for things straightforward.
But straightforward doesn't mean cheap.
Food, transportation and tourist areas could add up quickly.
That became even clearer during our beach day.
For our second Bermuda day, we wanted a beach where we could snorkel.
Our choices came down to Tobacco Bay, Church Bay and Horseshoe Bay.
Horseshoe Bay is probably the name most visitors recognize because of its famous pink sand.
But we weren't simply looking for the most famous beach.
We wanted somewhere Ollie could explore.
We chose Tobacco Bay.
It's known for relatively calm water, although the weather wasn't cooperating with us that day. It was windy, and the water was a little chilly.
We took the ferry to St. George's and walked approximately 0.65 mile to the beach.
The snorkeling was okay.
But Ollie barely cared.
Ollie became completely obsessed with searching for crabs among the rocks.
And that ended up being more fun for him than snorkeling.
It's a small detail, but an important one for how we're planning future trips.
For years, we could choose an excursion because it involved snorkeling and know Ollie would probably enjoy it.
That's changing.
He's more interested in exploring beaches, rocks, caves and whatever creatures he can find on his own.
That's one of the advantages of keeping these journals: you can actually watch the way your family's travel style changes over time.
Tobacco Bay itself was beautiful.
But Bermuda prices struck again.
Beach chairs were about $25 each, and chicken fingers and fries were roughly $23.
Not exactly a budget beach day.
For our final Bermuda day, we booked a Devil's Isle snorkeling excursion.
We'd expected a catamaran.
It wasn't.
Ollie was already disappointed.
The snorkeling itself was only okay. There were some large coral formations, but hardly any fish.
For a kid whose enthusiasm for snorkeling was already fading, this wasn't exactly the excursion that was going to bring it back.
Luckily, there was a beach.
Ollie immediately went back to what he'd decided Bermuda was really about:
looking for crabs.
And the setting was gorgeous.
Later, the excursion took us near a shipwreck where there were reportedly lots of fish. Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to snorkel there.
Instead, it was more of a quick drive-by.
That was frustrating because the shipwreck appeared to be the more interesting snorkeling location.
Back at the port, we walked around the shops.
I found two Hawaiian shirts—and, naturally, a matching one for Ollie.
It was also declared "Ollie's Day," which meant he was allowed to pick out another stuffed animal.
We stayed up that evening to watch Brazil play Haiti in the World Cup.
Ollie was granted the much more exciting privilege of watching TV and playing video games for the entire match.
Everyone won.
After three days exploring Bermuda, we had one more sea day.
And we did almost nothing.
We'd stayed up late watching the Brazil game, slept in, and were tired.
Ollie went to kids camp for about an hour and a half.
Hellen and I packed, watched some World Cup games and took a nap.
We also watched part of an Avatar movie because Ollie was interested.
He'd become obsessed with the kids' TV selection on the ship, which included shows such as The Wiggles, Blue's Clues, Dora, Bingo and Paw Patrol.
It was a completely uneventful day.
And it was great.
Sometimes that's exactly what a sea day should be.
Our final notes from the trip summed Celebrity up pretty well:
Amazing food. Very organized service. Not much entertainment that appealed to us.
Celebrity worked extremely well as a relaxing cruise.
If the goal was eating good food, sitting on the balcony, exploring Bermuda and having quiet sea days, it delivered.
If we were looking for nonstop activities and entertainment, we'd probably prefer a different cruise experience.
And that distinction matters more to us now than simply asking whether a cruise line is "good."
Different cruise lines are good at different things.
A few notes from the journal are definitely going into our future travel planning:
- Don't reserve an Uber too far ahead. On our return trip, nobody picked up the reservation. We waited roughly an hour, eventually had to book another ride and then wait again.
- JFK had a separate military priority area, which helped us get away from the main crowd.
- Celebrity's food remains one of its biggest strengths for us.
- For our family, Celebrity isn't particularly strong on entertainment.
- Bermuda is expensive, so food, transportation and beach rentals need to be included in the budget.
- You don't necessarily need a cruise-line excursion in Bermuda. We successfully used public buses and ferries to explore.
- Three days in one destination is fantastic. We had time for caves, a DIY beach day and an organized excursion without trying to squeeze everything into one afternoon.
- And perhaps most importantly: plan activities around the kid you have now, not the kid you traveled with two years ago.
The most interesting part of rereading this journal isn't actually the caves or the beaches.
It's Ollie.
He's becoming a different traveler.
He was able to navigate a little more independently onboard. He checked himself out of kids camp and returned to the cabin. He enjoyed scavenger hunts. At the beach, he'd rather explore rocks looking for crabs than follow us around snorkeling.
That's useful information for our next trip.
Family travel changes because families change.
The vacation that worked perfectly when your child was six might not work when they're ten. And what they love at ten might be completely different at fourteen.
We're learning to adjust rather than trying to recreate previous vacations.
Absolutely.
But we'd probably do it a little differently.
We'd keep the multi-day itinerary, because having three days in Bermuda was one of the best parts of the cruise. We'd use public transportation again. We'd explore more of the island independently. We'd probably choose another beach or spend more time exploring St. George's.
And we'd be more selective about snorkeling excursions.
Because apparently our family's snorkeling era may be ending.
The crab-hunting era has begun.
Approximate cost: Cruise: ~$3,700.00
Disappointments: None
Family stress level: Low
Our verdict: Do it again!
OUR PHOTOGRAPHS
